DVD Ripping- What's the best workflow?

[nutmeg7]

A friend and I want to put all our DVDs on on our external hard drives. Our current method has been just to use Handbrake to encode in AppleTV quality straight from the DVD, one at a time.

I suggested to him that maybe we should just rip each VIDEO_TS file so that we have the original DVD on the computer. Here are my reasons for this:

1. Doesn't over-work the optical drive as much.
2. True DVD quality is preserved.
3. Encoding from DVD requires you to be there to restart the process for each DVD. With them all on a hard drive, I can encode 20 movies for an iPod by setting up a Queue and walking away for 24 hours.
4. Down the line if you want to encode in another format, its really easy because you still have the original VIDEO_TS file on your hard drive.

These are the reasons he wasn't so hot on the idea:

1. He isn't worried about overworking his optical drive.
2. He thinks we are just gonna end up converting them all to mp4's anyway, so this puts in an extra step.
3. Apparently he says its easy enough to convert an AppleTV formatted mp4 to iPod. No reason to revert back to VIDEO_TS file to do it again.
4. The VIDEO_TS files are about 3x the size of the Apple TV encoded mp4, so this takes up way too much space.


We are both very new to this, so if someone that is a little more experienced has some advice, I'd love to heard it. Thanks!

 

[agentphish]

Seems like you both have your reasons for doing what you want to do.

I'd say to each his own. Use handbrake, and rip from DVD to high quality mp4 or something would be my suggestion.

Weather you go with copying the video_TS folders over or just ripping DVD>mp4 , Either way you still have to switch out each dvd one at a time.

 

[smilinmonki666]

This is a personal preference solution. I personally have started on my dads iMac & have 2 folders:
DVD Ripped
Converted

Once I get my own iMac I will keep my DVD Rip's made via Mac The Ripper on 1 drive that will be stored away for backup like other files on a file server, then my converted file via HandBrake will be stored on a separate drive located on the network/ server.

Yes, this take's up more space, but with HDD's becoming more cheaper, there is no real need to worry about storage, plus its better to be safe than sorry. Last thing I would like to experience again is my media library becoming damaged & having to start again? I would rather spend the money doing it once, than spending the time to do it again & again...

The best suggestion, do what you need to do to make you feel more secure & happy with your choice!

 

[live4ever]

HandBrake will have some trouble with the newer disc copy protections, so MTR is required for (mainly Sony) newer releases.

 

[ClemsonGLI]

I have been using "Mac the ripper" to rip for a while now to get the Video file. What can i use to compress the folder and burn onto a DVD?

 

[ClemsonGLI]

I have been using "Mac the ripper" to rip for a while now to get the Video file. What can i use to compress the folder and burn onto a DVD?

Anyone. CompresS?

 

[ClemsonGLI]

Anyone. CompresS?

Toast 8 works Great with a Video_TS File!

 

[richard.mac]

Toast 8 works Great with a Video_TS File!

yep Toast 8 is great! it has Popcorn integrated. i personally use MacTheRipper to rip to an unencrypted VIDEO_TS folder then drag this into Toast with "VIDEO_TS folder" selected under video. most DVDs are over 4.7 GB so i use "Fit-to-DVD video compression" as i only have a single layer burner and works great.

if i want to watch my DVDs on my Mac without a DVD i use Handbrake. i make an MP4 with H.264 codec and a bitrate of 2400 kbps as this is what Apple uses for their movies on the iTS. cuts the movie size down to about 1.5 - 2 GB.